Homecoming as exile? Experiences of rupture and belonging

This chapter draws on a life history approach to present a migrant life story of homecoming, as it grapples with the meaning of “home” for a member of the Cypriot diaspora, who has return migrated from the UK back to the ancestral island homeland. It draws from one of a number of migrant narratives collected in Cyprus a decade ago, and, focuses on issues of belonging and homing. The chapter narrates the experience of homecoming and return migration through dimensions of a Cypriot diasporic migrant life story in relation to gendering borders, affective exclusions and cultural homing. Concepts of “home”, “borders” and “exile” are integral to research on diasporic communities, and, are even more elusive when it comes to the transnational lives of subsequent generations. In the case of the still divided island of Cyprus, the conceptual and affective complexities indeed surmount nation-state structural parameters, as more nuanced meanings are involved in how identities are articulated and expressed. The narrative analysis is grounded on a set of temporalities, spatialities and emotionalities: the timespaces of the historical experiences of Cyprus; mobilities and return experiences; historical and personal trauma and reconciliation, as well as the affectivity of all these issues contextualised in the passing of a decade from collection to reflection to writing and publication. The chapter juxtaposes the messiness of the lived experience, of migrant livelihoods and of researcher field-workings to draw some insights on emotional and ethical negotiations as elements in the migrant story-telling.